Gudit said little these days and her expression, which had never been pleasant, was perpetually sour. When Balkis became priestess, she had initially avoided the midwife, the agent of her circumcision, but quickly realized that Gudit was very knowledgeable. Feuds among villagers, bad harvests, epidemics-these were recurring problems. Gudit remembered how they had been handled in the past. On her advice, Balkis had revived old institutions, such as her grandmother’s informal court of mediation over which the priestess presided as neutral arbiter. She added her own innovations, for instance, rotating crops so the harm of one season wouldn’t pass easily to the next, and adding winter crops. A stand in the market now sold village-produced crafts, providing income even when the gardens failed. When disease gripped the surrounding areas, Balkis took advantage of the natural boundary of the cistern wall to quarantine the village. For all of these schemes, Gudit had been a sounding board, until the young surgeon Constantine Courtidis came to the village and she fell sullenly silent.
Courtidis had begun to visit Sunken Village a year ago, offering to care for the sick at little charge. Although he brought modern European medicines, people continued to ask Gudit for her traditional remedies on the principle that two cures were better than one. But Balkis was certain Gudit felt pushed aside. The problem, she thought irritably, was of the midwife’s own making. She was becoming old and had trained no one to take her place.
Balkis stepped from her dressing room into the opulently furnished receiving hall, which stretched the entire length of the house with rooms radiating out from it. The ceiling rose to the height of two men, lending grandeur. Servants stood at the back near the doors to the kitchen and hamam, waiting for instructions.
She saw Saba perched on the divan at the front of the hall, oblivious to the requirements of running a household, head bowed over a book. Behind her daughter, the sharp tines of the monstrance radiated outward like a cruel sun. When Saba raised her head, the monstrance made a halo around it. Her skin was the color of burnt sugar, her nose long and straight, with high, fluted nostrils like those of an Arabian horse.
Saba put her book aside. “Are you ready, Mama?” she asked. “Uncle Malik isn’t here yet.”
Balkis nodded. Retrieving a long, narrow box from a corner of the room, Saba took from it a scepter. It was a diamond-shaped cross of iron and brass, decorated with small stylized birds, attached to the top of a long iron stave.
Just then, Malik arrived. He stood inside the door to catch his breath before limping into the receiving hall and greeting them warmly. Saba hurried over to kiss her uncle.
“Ah, Priestess, you’re ready. Give an old man a few minutes.” He leaned over so Balkis could brush her cheek against his.
He looked ill, Balkis noted worriedly. They were both getting old. She was almost forty and Malik three years older. She was plagued by a pain incubating deep within her belly and a fatigue that stole upon her like a blanketing mist.
An old servant with a wrinkled face the deep purple-black of aubergines took Malik’s arm and led him toward the dressing room. “Someday one of us will become worn out and have to be replaced,” Malik joked. “Judging from the strength of your grip, it’ll probably be me.”
The old man didn’t respond, though Balkis saw a shy smile cross his face.
After a few minutes, Malik emerged in a linen robe and matching ceremonial cape similar to Balkis’s. The caretaker’s traditional garment covered him from waist to ankle, leaving his chest and back bare. A key, larger than the one around Balkis’s neck, hung from a wide leather belt around his waist. His chest was bony and the olive skin above his belt sagged, but she thought he still looked magnificent.
“Use your fur-lined robe, brother,” Balkis admonished him. “See. I have mine.”
“Next week, sister. I promise.”
Saba ran outside and returned with a freshly plucked peacock feather. She dipped its nib in molten wax from a candle and handed it to Malik.
“Thank you, my dear girl.”
Gudit reappeared, dressed in a red smock.
Their motions were routine, but Balkis saw the unrehearsed portends in the actors’ ready lines, the advanced age of those carrying out the ritual, her brother’s decline and foolish refusal to take care of himself, and Saba’s naïveté. She was a child still, and attached to her uncle, who was filling her head with pious thoughts and ignoring her wits, which also needed to be developed.
They waited for Amida, but when he didn’t arrive, they stepped out into the courtyard. The house of the priestess was an imposing structure set within the embrace of the cistern wall. Flanking the house were two cottages. The larger one backed against the cistern wall and was hidden behind a row of oleanders. Amida had recently had the doorway enlarged to accomodate a grand piano he had purchased. Six brawny men had maneuvered the instrument like a giant scaled insect down the stairs from Charshamba, providing entertainment and gossip for half the district. In the evenings, Balkis could hear the halting canto of him practicing.
A shabbier cottage, inhabited by Gudit, stood just before two columns with elaborate Corinthian capitals that guarded the entrance to the courtyard. Both cottages were made from wood, then plastered and whitewashed like the other village homes. They had been rebuilt many times. The ruins of similar cottages jutted from the weeds.
No one knew the age of the house of the priestess, the only substantial stone building in Sunken Village besides the prayer hall. Its walls, like those of the cistern, were courses of bricks alternating with bands of marble. A marble frieze-a mosaic of warriors engaged in violent encounters with lances and swords, archers on horses, women in elaborately draped robes, and muscular men-wrapped around the house above the windows. Snakes, horses, and other animals, interspersed with acanthus leaves, paraded around a narrower band just below the eaves. Inset directly above the lintel was the carving of a winged lion. The outlines of the figures were blurred after centuries of scouring by the elements, but Balkis never tired of studying them. The house and the ritual reminded her that she was one of a long chain of priestesses, each given a sacred trust.
Malik and Balkis crossed the courtyard, Saba behind them, followed by Gudit and the other servants. Balkis slowed her steps so Malik could keep up. It was midmorning and the sky had darkened. The poplars slashed at the sky in a hard gust of wind, then were still again.
Amida strode across the courtyard and fell in place beside his sister. Balkis felt a surge of pleasure at the sight of her son. As they walked slowly down the lane to the village square, groups of men and women fell in behind them. People bowed as they passed. By the time they had crossed the square to the prayer house, a crowd had formed.
The Melisite prayer house was old, perhaps even older than the home of the priestess. Its walls were built of precisely cut limestone fitted seamlessly together in alternating bands of stone and brick. Its iron-studded wooden portal was shut. Flanking the entry were two shoulder-height granite pillars scored by a series of thick horizontal lines and protruding circles.
The procession stopped before a large, flat stone in a clearing next to the prayer house. Lying on the stone was a young ewe, its fore and hind legs bound, held in place by a middle-aged man in a red smock.
Balkis stood before the sacrifice and, together with Malik, began to pray. The villagers followed, their voices rising and falling.